I’m cradling my assortment of unhealthy snacks when I look outside and see a figure start to step into my car. I’m normally religious about locking it, but since I was only going to be a second and I parked in front of the door, I figured it would be okay. What kind of crazy person steals a car from a convenience store in the middle of the day? The man takes something out of his pocket and turns the car over. He must have had a key, because it didn’t look like he hotwired it. I drop my snacks, letting the slushie spill all over the floor. As people inch away from the ever-spreading pink liquid and give me funny looks, I pad myself down, feeling the familiar sharp edges of my keys, so I know that the thief didn’t pick my pocket. “Oh my God!” I exclaim. “He’s stealing my car! Somebody stop him!” But no one does. I remember this as the bystander effect wherein nobody in a crowd helps in a crisis because each person will assume that someone else will help instead. I rush out the door and try to stop the man. As he backs up, the tires squeal, crying out their need to be replaced. I could not before see the man’s face from the tint of the windshield, but the window is down and I can see him clearly now. It’s me; from an alternate reality, or the future, or something. He looks at me like this absolutely had to happen. I let him go, because I must have had a good reason. I walk back inside to assure the bystanders that it was just my jerk brother, playing a prank.
-
Current Schedule
-
Sundays (macrofiction)
-
The Advancement of Mateo Matic
Now that the lineup has been irreversibly established, and their reliance upon the direction of any external force removed from the equation, Team Matic must decide for themselves what missions to take. As they approach the year that changes everything, they may find themselves on a long detour.
Click here for the complete list of volumes thus far
-
-
Weekdays (microfiction)
-
Reflections
Roughly one hundred people die every minute. This series is told from the point of view of the hundred that took this final journey all over the world on the very first minute of 2022.
-
-
Saturdays (mezzofiction)
-
Extremus vol. 2
Now over 17,000 light years into the journey, the Extremus inducts a new Captain, and continues on towards their hypothetical new home. This is second of nine volumes in the Extremus multiseries.
-
-
- Multiseries
- Single Series
- Darning WarsNew!
- Recursiverse
- Miscellaneous
- CONTACT
- About Me
My name is Nick Fisherman III. It's not my real name, but that's not because I'm trying to hide from my former agency, or something. I named myself after someone I've known for most of my life, and he chose it in honor of his late best friend. I took up writing when I found myself failing 8th grade science, and realized I might never reach my dream of becoming a biochemist, a meteorologist, and a quantum physicist. I started developing my canon after a scouting trip to an island inspired what I thought would be my first novel. I founded this website upon the advice of many people, who told me I needed to get my work out there, and not wait for an agent to accept my manuscript. You can expect one new story every day. Weekdays are for microstories, which are one or two paragraphs long. They're usually only thematically linked, so you won't have to read one to understand another, but they do sometimes tell a combined story. Sundays are for my continuous longer story, The Advancement of Mateo Matic, which I started in the beginning, and won't end until 2066. Saturdays are for long series, most of which take place in the same universe as Mateo, and add to the larger mythology.
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Microstory 78: Self-Abandon
Labels:
alternate reality
,
bystander effect
,
car
,
convenience store
,
crowd
,
experimental
,
future
,
microfiction
,
microstory
,
prank
,
snacks
,
stealing
,
thief
Subscribe to:
Post Comments
(
Atom
)
No comments :
Post a Comment